Archive for the 'Craig Rivet' Category

(This post is the second in a series of posts dedicated to studying the roster photos of the Sabres in an effort to figure out why they can’t play hockey anymore. We must save future generations of Sabres so that they do not have to suffer as these Sabres are suffering now.)

Woe are Sabres fans! Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Sabres played a game at home against the Bruins. Oh the horrors these eyes have seen!

All of Buffalo is ablaze trying to figure out what s wrong with this disaster of a team. At The Willful Caboose Research Laboratories, we understand that careful analysis of roster photos is the fastest and best way to correctly diagnose a hockey team. Today we take a closer look at two key members of the defense.

Craig Rivet

Craig Rivet is the captain of the Sabres, and we here at The Willful Caboose Research Laboratories have a certain amount of sympathy for his plight. His job is not easy, but it’s vitally important. Someone has to talk to the media with a straight face after all these losses, and sadly for Craig Rivet, that job falls to him. Off the ice, we think he’s performed admirably in the face of trying times. He sounds intelligent and rational in his interviews, which we find reassuring, because at this point it’s difficult to say who is in charge of this team, and honestly, we think they could do worse than Craig Rivet if they’re looking for leadership. (pleasedon’tmakeRoy-Zcaptain, pleasedon’tmakeRoy-Zcaptain, pleasedon’tmakeRoy-Zcaptain)

ON the ice, he’s been quite poopy.

What can we learn from Craig Rivet?

As usual, the roster photos paint a picture, clear as day.

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Ah, I think I see what happened here. It appears that in 2008, after the start of what looked like a promising career, Craig Rivet became a Sabre. He also appears to have gotten old.

Analysis: Becoming a Sabre and getting old at the same time is an absolutely lethal combination of calamities. Almost no hockey player could survive it. Such a shame. Poor Rivet. Sabres management should take care to make sure this never again happens to an innocent San Jose Shark.

Tyler Myers

Tyler Myers was the rookie of the year for goodness sakes! And now he’s terrible at hockey! It is VITALLY important that we figure out what’s wrong with Mylers, because he still has YEARS of hockey ahead of him. It’s not just future generations that can benefit from Tyler Myers’ story, it’s Tyler Myers himself.

Let’s go to the photos:

2009

2010

Frankly, we don’t get it. Tyler Myers looks almost exactly the same in his roster photo this year as he did last year. This might be a first for TWC Labratories- we can’t figure out what went wrong!

Analysis: You know, now that we look at these photos again, we are seeing sliiiight indications that Tyler Myers might not be as spiffy this year as he was last year, but we can’t really put our finger on what’s different. In the end, we can only assume that whatever is preventing Tyler Myers from being awesome will go away on its own. It’s safe to assume things about the Sabres because “assume” makes an ass out of “u and me”, not “the Sabres”. Assumptions like, “He won’t even notice the loss of Henrik Tallinder,” and, “A 20-year-old-boy can totally carry the weight of the entire defense on his skinny shoulders,” would NEVER come back to bite the Sabres (and the violists who blog about them) in the butt. No sir.

Point: The current state of the Sabres has left me unable to blog. I am suffering from the worst kind of blogging-block these days. I try and try and TRY to write (I swear to you, I’M TRYING), but every post seems overworked, uninteresting, and lacking a clear perspective.

I’m in some new stage of my Sabres fandom. This terrible start to the season (and all the resultant disillusionment) is something I haven’t ever really experienced. A few days ago at work my friend Roman (a longtime hockey fan, and someone whose good attitude about sports I really admire) asked me if I would be in danger of losing interest in the Sabres if their suckiness continued. (I’m pretty sure Roman did not actually use the word “suckiness”. That sounds more like me than it sounds like Roman. But you get the drift.) My answer was a resounding “NO.” I’m in no danger of losing interest. In fact, if anything, I’m getting increasingly fascinated. Oh, it’s a morbid fascination alright, but I can’t turn away.

The difference now is that I’ve withdrawn a bit emotionally. The overwrought hysteria that has been the trademark of this blog for three years is just not there right now. Who am I if I’m not a wailing lunatic?! How can I write about the Sabres if I lack the emotional passion to insist the world is about to end every time they lose twice in a row? Where will the entertaining blog rants come from, if, in the end all I feel after watching them cough up a two goal leadis, “The Sabres are really not good at this, are they?” And if I can’t get worked up about the losses, what if I’m turning into one of those dead-on-the-inside fans that can’t enjoy WINS?! PLEASE JUST KILL ME NOW IF THAT’S WHERE THIS IS ALL INEVITABLY LEADING.

You can probably see why trying to blog about the Sabres has left me feeling a little confused.

Counterpoint: Dude. I need to get over myself.

I should just force myself to write about the Sabres. Maybe I could come up with a cheesy little device like “point/counterpoint” which would acknowledge that I’m not entirely sure what to think about any of this because for some annoying reason I’m seeing both sides of the coin right now. That way, if everything I write turns out to be totally stupid in hindsight, I can always be all, “Well, whatever. What do I know,” all breezy-like. Insisting that I didn’t know what I was talking about while simultaneously putting forth strongly held opinions worked to keep me out of dicey “accountability” trouble for YEARS on this blog.

Who cares if what I write is wrong. It’s all about cleverly hedging my bets.

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Point: I think Lindy was right to bench Rivet. Rivet has probably been the Sabres’ worst defenseman all season, and Lindy has repeatedly claimed that he’ll play his best players and sit the rest. Benching the captain sends a message that Lindy intends to hold individuals responsible.

But the real reason I’m glad Lindy benched Rivet is that I’ve always hated the notion that Lindy would never bench a captain. Apparently way back when Lindy himself was a captain he got benched, and it pissed him off something fierce. Of all the possible excuses not to make a roster move, the fact that Lindy got his feelings hurt twenty years ago, seems like one of the worst. I wasn’t a fan back in 1989 when Lindy was benched, so I have no idea what the circumstance surrounding that benching were, but it’s entirely possible that even though it was a TOTALLY crummy experience for Lindy Ruff, it was a still a good move for the team. I have sympathy for how difficult it must have been for Lindy to put his personal feeling aside and bench Rivet, but I really respect that he did it.

Counterpoint: Benching Rivet seems to have had zero positive effect on the team. They lost miserably both nights that Rivet sat in the press box. (Full disclosure: I was working on Saturday and because of the 8pm start in Dallas, the BPO intermission lined up perfectly with the 1st intermission of the game. Because of this, I literally did not see a second of that game. I’m not a glutton for punishment, so I haven’t watched a single highlight or postgame interview. My basis for calling the loss “miserable” is the score, and the score alone. Getting shutout 4-0 by Andrew Raycroft looks pretty miserable to me, but maybe there was something positive about that game that the score alone cannot convey.)

The fact that Lindy benched Rivet and then the team responded by being even MORE disheveled and stupid-penalty-taking might be damning evidence that absolutely nothing Lindy says or does is getting through to these guys. In my opinion, being all bold and bench-y always makes a coach look a little desperate, but sometimes it works, and in those cases the ends justify the means. But when it doesn’t work, benching the captain shines a big ol’ spotlight on the crazytown that is thriving inside your locker room.

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Point: I ran out of Halloween candy last night, so there are no leftovers sitting around the house.

Counterpoint: I ran out of Halloween candy last night, so there are no leftovers sitting around the house.

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Point: Not to pile on Lindy too much here, but I thought his public musings about Jason Pominville’s failed post-concussion memory tests were a little irresponsible. (In case you didn’t see Lindy’s comments, he basically wondered out loud if Pominville’s inability to match his baseline memory scores might not be a symptom of his concussion, but rather a sign that he aced the living hell out of the test as a rookie.)

This issue is complicated because no one seems to understand concussions, but I have to think that the last thing these players need is an NHL coach implying “HE PERFECTLY FINE” when actual doctors are saying he’s not fully recovered. Not to mention the fact that every young player now knows that if you want an easier time getting back into the lineup after a concussion, you should play dumb when they ask you to draw a bunch of shapes on a piece of paper as a rookie.

I can understand the frustration of not having Pominville back in the line-up (particularly when Pommers himself says he feels totally fine), but I still think Lindy should have said something along the lines of, “We want Pominville back in the line-up as soon as possible, but we don’t want to endanger his longterm health. It’s important that we don’t send him back in there too soon.” If Pominville is still failing these tests a month after he first claims to be symptom free, then sure, it might be time to question the testing methods, but for now I think Lindy Ruff and Jason Pominville should just keep their mouths shut and trust the doctors.

Counterpoint: The testing method does seem a little archaic. Why don’t they test the players more often? How come Jason Pominville hasn’t taken this test since he was a rookie? Isn’t it possible that he’s a little mentally slower for a variety of totally normal, non-concussion related reasons? Doesn’t he have a baby at home? Maybe he doesn’t get enough sleep and that’s why he’s dumber now than he was six years ago. Wouldn’t it be easier to accurately measure Pommers pre and post-concussion if they had done additional baseline testing during training camp this season?

If treating players for concussions is starting to rely more on testing and less on how the player actually reports that he is feeling (and because of stories like Marc Savard’s, I think we have to consider that it really might be best to be distrustful of what a player is saying about his health), shouldn’t the testing be a little more rigorous than one baseline test as a rookie?

The concept of “the bandwagon fan” is very controversial, but I have a fondness in my heart for the new fan. After all, it was at this time of year that I myself hopped on the Sabres bandwagon. Every fan has to start somewhere, and often fandom is inspired by the playoffs. The current Sabres may not feel like a bandwagon-y situation to a longtime fan, but I’m writing this series for the “Katebitses of 2007″; the guy or gal who is suddenly drawn to the Sabres, but doesn’t know where to begin.

But what about all the skaters? To the untrained eye, it looks like a gobbledy mess out there (actually, it looks like that to the semi-trained eye too), but the skaters do have defined roles.

One of those roles is, “the defenseman,” or, for our Canadian friends, “defenceman”. (Canadians are weird.)

Part Two: The Defense

It’s the job of the defensemen to help guard the net by actively battling with the other team’s players. Ideally, the defensemen skate around, hitting the other teams forwards and snatching the puck in order to scoot it out of harm’s way.

At any given time, two out of the five skaters on the ice are defensemen.If you’re having trouble spotting the defensemen, look for the guys skating backwards. That’s usually them. They’re also the guys who are hanging back at center ice when all the action is down in one end. When I first started watching hockey I used to get cranky thinking,”That guy is just standing there at the blueline doing nothing. He should go try to score a goal. Dumbass.” But then I was always pleasantly surprised when the play turned around and there were still Sabres between the other team and our goal. “Toni Lydman, that was very clever of you to stay back behind the blueline so that the other team can’t skate right up to Crunchy! You’re so smart!”

Fun Fact about defensemen and defense in general: You can just call it “D”. At first it will feel redonk to say “D” (very similar to the first time you said “redonk,” actually), but after a while it rolls right off the tongue.

Defensemen skate in pairs, so every defenseman has a BFF. Sometimes Lindy (more on Lindy later) mixes the pairs up, but for the most part, the Sabres defensemen are monogamous and loyal to their BFF/life partner.

The Sabres strongest current pairing is Tallinder and Myers. Tallinder separated from Lydman last season and at first he seemed to be having a REAL rough time, but now he’s found someone younger and sexier and his broken heart seems to be totally mended.

There are two noteworthy things about the Sabres defense. 1. Everyone thought they would be sucky this year, but they’re totally not, and 2. They are NOT sucky, primarily because of this guy:

Tyler Myers. He's more than just an insanely long neck. He's also very good at hockey.

Tyler Myers is, like, six-years-old. He’s a wee little baby. (“Wee” in years, not in size. He’s actually humongous.) He’s a wee little baby who is about to win the Calder Trophy. “Calder Trophy” is NHL-speak for “rookie of the year.”

In my not-at-ALL humble opinion, Tyler Myers is a big deal. Last year, the Sabres were poo. THIS year (Myers’ rookie year), the Sabres are third in the Eastern Conference. Coincidence? I think not. In addition to being good at his job, he’s almost singlehandedly rehabilitated Tallinder, which was no small feat. I used to worry that Myers would get hurt because he’s so spindly, but he seems to have the super-strength of a toddler. You could toss him down a flight of stairs and I bet he’d just pop right back up and start skating around, no problem. Tyler Myers is awesome and he’s changed everything about the Sabres. Love him without reservation.

Here are the other defensemen:

Henrik Tallinder. Smiley, attractive, NOT a good drinking partner.

Toni, Tone, Tony Lydman. Hilarious. Good at hockey except for when he sucks. My favorite defenseman.

Steve Montador. Shockingly hot for a guy who's not that hot. Seems to not be an idiot. All-around alluring.

Craig Rivet. Got elected captain of the team on his first day as a Sabre, probably because he seems like an adult.

Chris Butler. Poor Butts. There is something wrong with him. Hopefully it's just a sophomore slump.

Andrej Sekera. Looks like a little old man for some reason.

In conclusion, the Sabres defense is pretty good and moderately foxy. Since you’re a Bandwagoner, I am going to recommend that you focus on Myers. You canNOT be a Sabres fan this spring without knowing that Tyler Myers is young, awesome, tall, and long-necked. Myers is the most deserving of your bandwagoning affections, but really, all of these guys have their good qualities. The defense is relatively safe waters for the new fan.

Have fun watching the D, Bandwagoners!

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Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, when we begin to examine the “forwards”.

We’ve heard a lot this season about how Lindy Ruff has been backing off from his normal routine of screaming and yelling. He claims that he is letting the Sabres lead themselves. After a bad game, he lets them work it out on their own. After thinking about this for a bit, I developed an image of Craig Rivet and Mike Grier playing good cop/bad cop in the Sabres locker room.

Mike Grier is the tough task master. He yells at the slackers, and if he gets really pissed, he roughs them up a bit. Then, in swoops Craig Rivet and with a few soothing murmers and a bandaid to make it all better, he dries Roy-Z’s tears. The next game, Roy-Z plays harder in an effort to avoid Grier’s wrath and to gain Rivet’s approval.

Meanwhile, during the time he used to spend coaching, Lindy can just eat bon-bons and waste his entire day checking out his ex-girlfriends on Facebook.

I’m kind of a drama queen when it comes to the Sabres (although oddly, I’m not a drama queen in any other area of my life), so I felt a little bit of vindication when I made my morning blog rounds today. It seems I’m not the only person who thought that that was THE WORST HOCKEY GAME IN THE HISTORY OF TIME AND SPACE. I mean, I’ve seen the Sabres suck plenty of times before, but that game last night was an abomination. I’m not sure that either team successfully completed a pass all night. I will forever remember that game as ten guys standing in the middle of the rink kicking the puck around randomly with their skates. For all I know, they didn’t even USE hockey sticks last night.

But the details about last night are neither here nor there. The main point is that the Sabres are not a good hockey team. I’ll admit, I’ve lost ALL patience for waiting around for this particular group of guys to pull it together. It’s not going to happen. Drastic steps must be taken.

I’m not ordinarily the type of blogger to play the role of GM. I don’t feel very confident with my hockey analysis, but this situation has inspired me to go out on a limb and write a serious post about what I would do if I were the GM of the Sabres. In my opinion, this team needs a major shake-up.

Here are the moves I would make:

Tim Connolly should be retired and sent to a farm to live out his remaining years grazing peacefully. It’s the most humane solution at this point.

Drew Stafford should be traded for Evgeni Malkin.

Derek Roy‘s talent should be surgically extracted and implanted into Paul Gaustad. This is a dangerous scheme because there’s a risk that Goose could be infected with some of Roy-Z’s personality as well as his talent (that, of course, would be disastrous/tragic), but I’m sure we can all agree that a Goose/Roy-Z hybrid would be a useful player to have around. I think it’s worth the risk. After the talent transferring procedure, the now talentless Derek Roy can become Goose’s personal assistant. Everyone wins….except Goose, who now has a talentless Derek Roy following him around all the time.

Ryan Miller needs his glass eye removed and replaced with a real eye. He’s done pretty well with one glass eye, considering, but it’s clear that he needs two good eyes to compete in the NHL. He might as well get his wonky eyebrow re-cocked while he’s at it.

Jason Pominville needs to be taken off the point on the power play.

Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman need to be sent out into the deep forest and each be given a match, a single bottle of water, and a penknife. They have 48 hours to hunt and kill the other. Whoever comes out alive gets to keep his job.

Thomas Vanek should be paid $7.1 million dollars per year for the next six years.

Clarke MacArthur should be traded to the Blackhawks for Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane.

Andrew Peters should be waived and Adam Mair should start actively practicing punching people and being punched in return.

Patrick Kaleta should be sent to Portland, and Danny Paille should start actively practicing being really, really annoying.

Nathan Paetsch should be traded for Nicklas Lidstrom.

Craig Rivet should be returned to the San Jose Sharks. This is a mercy trade made of behalf of Rivet who is probably looking at his old team with extreme longing right about now. This poor dude was living a perfectly happy life in California a few months ago, and now, through no fault of his own, he’s the CAPTAIN of this train wreck. Poor dude. I want to set him free.

Mark Mancari,Nathan Gerbe, and Tim Kennedy should all be given trial jobs with the Sabres, but they should be FORBIDDEN from socializing with any of their elder teammates. Everyday after practice they should be chauffeured to their grim apartments at the Extended Stay America off the 290, and supervised for the remainer of the day. If any of them even glances wistfully at Chippewa St, they should be automatically fired/executed.

Teppo Numminen should be compelled to retire so that he may begin some sort of job which involves him standing behind the bench with James Patrick looking foxy in a well tailored suit.

Jaroslav Spacek should call a press conference and then bite the head off the pigeon so that we never have to hear about that dumb thing again. (This isn’t so much of a personnel move as it is a personal request from me to Jaro.)

I love it when this blog writes itself. And by “writes itself” I mean, “you guys send me awesome stuff”.

We have two amazing reader contributions today:

1. John M contributed this amazing picture of The Steel Rivet in the comment thread from yesterday’s post. I’m not sure if John M. did the photoshopping himself or if he found it somewhere else, but either way, he’s a hero. UPDATE: This photoshop was created by “fly as hale” who works her magic over on the official Sabres forums. UPDATE II: Okay, I’m now totally confused about who did this photoshopping. Here’s what we know for sure; Craig the Riveter was brought to my attention by John M, and flyashale is using it as her avatar over on the Sabres Forums. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. From now on I’m going to steal whatever I want from the internet and credit no one. Heh. REDONKULOUS UPDATE III: FOR THE LOVE OF LINDY RUFF! Okay, according to Jael, who I have COMPLETE and utter faith in, the person who photoshopped this picture of Craig Rivet’s head onto Rosie the Riveter’s body is Tsujimoto who pedals his righteous wares over on the HF Forums. I’m starting to wonder if photoshops don’t belong to everyone. I mean, Craig the Steel Riveter can’t be OWNED. He’s a part of all of us.

Craig the Steel Riveter = effing awesome

2. As you all know, yesterday was a historic day for America. In what can only be characterized as a landslide, we the people of The Willful Caboose overwhelmingly voted that Lindy Ruff’s new nickname be “Colonel Mustard”. The people have spoken, and the polls are now closed. (Actually, the polls are still open because I have no idea how to close them. Keep voting if you are so moved.) Our task as a blog is to move forward in the spirit of cooperation. We must begin to heal the divides that were created over the course of the 24 hour campaign to give Lindy his new nickname. Colonel Mustard may not not be the name you voted for, but he is still the same coach he’s always been.

Here are the final results of your vote:

As you can see, it was a clear cut victory for “Colonel Mustard”.

And for our neighbors to the north, we have converted the vote tallies:

I don’t understand the metric system, but I assume Colonel Mustard won in Canada too.

The whole Colonel Mustard thing was started, promoted, and lovingly rendered in electoral maps by the fabulous Christina from Reigning Frog’s Blog. Although I tried very hard to keep politics away from our unsullied safe-hockey-space, there are certain times when the people’s voice must be heard.

Let’s look at the evidence (also make sure you look at the update at the end of this post):

1. Ryan Miller posted TWO shutouts IN A ROW! TWO! And not the sarcastic “Ryan Miller shutouts” where he actually let in a lazy goal at the end. TWO ACTUAL GAMES IN WHICH NO PUCKS ENTERED HIS NET!

2. Craig Rivet is back! My friend Daniel (who is not really a hockey fan. [I’m working on him, but it’s tough…..he’s from Kentucky.]) recently told that me that he was very disappointed when he learned that Craig Rivet’s name was pronounced “Ri-vay”. Apparently, he thought our captain’s last name was the English pronunciation of “rivet”. Daniel think we should be calling Rivet, “The Steel Riv-it”. You know what? I think Daniel is absolutely right, and I can’t believe no one else has mentioned this before. I mean, here’s the definition of “riveting”:

That kind of describes Rivet perfectly, right? He showed up in Buffalo and fixed the Sabres by joining everyone together as a cohesive unit. Plus, he’s riveting in that we are all held in rapt attention when he is in the lineup.

My point here is that I believe we should start purposefully mispronouncing Craig Rivet’s name so that we may call him “The Steel Rivet”. It’s a badass nickname and it suits him.

3. Timmy skated without a helmet IN AN NHL GAME for several seconds, and he did not die. If that’s not an omen of good fortune, I don’t know what is.

4. Last night Lindy was wearing a suit and tie that perfectly coordinated with his yellow hair and mustache. I love it when Lindy dresses to match his yellow hair.

Stud.

So, as you can PLAINLY see, there has never been a better time to vote than today. Conditions are perfect.

VOTE!

UPDATE: At the suggestion of the frequently hilarious Reigning Frog, we have called an official TWC VOTE! Please cast your vote now on this important issue: SHOULD LINDY RUFF’S NEW NICKNAME BE COLONEL MUSTARD? This may be the most important vote you will ever cast, people.

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